Water charges revisited?

McMurphy

facehugger99 wrote: »

Using the money-tree funds or did you have something else in mind?

Is the €120B required spend on the project Ireland 2040 plan coming from the money tree too, aye?

PeadarCo

Larbre34 wrote:

A couple of things need to happen. 1, Irish Water needs to be abolished and network investment handed over to TII to be handled like the civil engineering challenge it is and let them get on with it using their proven expertise. 2, the Dept of Environment and the Councils need to make water conservation a local civic matter, because it is the right thing to do and do the PR like plastic bags and the smoking ban, put an education programme into schools. Awareness becomes second nature and over time we become better as a Country and managing the resource, particularly if our weather is going to become more extreme.

Is this not an argument for water charges. Plastic bags were dealt with by taxing them. That is what water charges are a charge on use. In the case of the smoking ban, that made it an offence for a place to allow smoking inside. If this approach was applied to water charges it would mean making it an offence to waste water which is far more extreme than water charges.

What experience does TII have with dealing with water mains. Why experience would they have that Irish water wouldn't?

Larbre34

PeadarCo wrote: »

Is this not an argument for water charges. Plastic bags were dealt with by taxing them. That is what water charges are a charge on use. In the case of the smoking ban, that made it an offence for a place to allow smoking inside. If this approach was applied to water charges it would mean making it an offence to waste water which is far more extreme than water charges.

What experience does TII have with dealing with water mains. Why experience would they have that Irish water wouldn't?

Its an argument for charging for profligacy, but the Govt have ****ed that possibility.

TII are civil engineering project managers, it doesnt particularly matter whether its a motorway a tramline or a pipeline network, they know how to package up projects and deliver them. My point is, they are already in situ, now that charges have gone away, having Irish Water remain is costly duplication of resources.

Larbre34

facehugger99 wrote: »

Using the money-tree funds or did you have something else in mind?

Eh, no, ignorant comment. The same 600m~ per annum out of taxation that is already on the slate. The saving comes in the abolition of Irish Water and using TII for its expertise as i said above.

Irish Water does not equal efficiency.

dense

aido79 wrote: »

So you'd prefer an increase in your taxes rather than pay water charges?

I'd like to see how proposals for tax increases would fly!

Water charges were abolished of course and I don't recall taxes being increased to fill that void.

Nor did I hear that IW has had to abandon their ambitious and much admired investment plans as a result. Indeed, the Shannon thing is even in planning IIRC. Therefore the choice you offered is a non sequitur.

Those with any bit of acumen would now have to agree that the only logical and sensible thing to do now before any plebiscite makes selling it awkward is to offload IW as a going concern to an international utility which presumably would invest the necessary billions required and then play hardball with the peaceful protest types who won't pay the annual charges. Charges which I'm guessing would be multiples of what they were, in order to produce some sort of dividend for investors.

Logic of course is one thing, but the FG/FF alliance has time and time again shown that it doesn't have the political will to do what is necessary to provide us with a first class water system.

It's also worth remembering that in spite of almost 50% leakage, which only on rare occasions causes problems, our system is actually quite good in world terms of penetration, quality, the lack of water poverty, combined with quite a frugal personal consumption rate.

Some would seek to say otherwise of course.

Because again, politics.

Larbre34

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Link to your claim? Or is it not a fact that it’s the initial setup costs that most of the first years income would cover?

I'd have thought you would have been schooled enough in this from the multiple IW threads over the years. But OK.

Charges = €170m. Irish Water salaries and pensions, >€70m per annum, not including the Council staff they support. Add in their consultants, property costs, energy, PR (!) and many other overheads and its very clear. Not to mention, if the charges were still there, the cost of the billing admin would be too.

You lost, get over it.

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

Because people focussed on the small things like board appointments rather than the bigger picture.

It is a sad state of political discussion when people cannot distinguish between what is material and what is important. This failure, egged on by populist charlatan politicians was what brought Irish Water down.

You are misinterpreting my comment.

The board appointments and consultant fees were signs of rot, even before the sweet deal currently under investigation.

These things were an aside. A sign we couldn't trust politicians and their cronies to take care of the tax payers best interests. The water infrastructure was third place after 'looking after our own' and a sweet metering deal.

I'm surprised at this stage you still post such comments. The 'small things' such as 70m on consultants and crony appointments all came to light while opposition to the quango was already in full flow, you know this surely? The framework of the quango was the issue, the many cronyisms and waste of taxpayer money on such 'small things' shouldn't be dismissed. I mean we had no 'magic money tree' for health, housing etc. right? Seems we'd wheelbarrows of dosh for anything IW's little heart desired.

The people brought IW down. Politicians can convince themselves otherwise and if it helps FG/Lab sleep at night, sure it was all Paul Murphy and PBP.... I don't think anyone, including Paul Murphy believes that.

Hitman3000

dense wrote:

Water charges were abolished of course and I don't recall taxes being increased to fill that void.

A poster here was adamant taxes were going to increase and repeatedly asked what taxes we would like to see increased. If I recall correctly income tax fell in the last budget as did usc. Vat remained the same however I believe the hospitality vat rate should be hiked back up to 13.5%. The 9% has served it's reason d' etre.

blanch152

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Is the €120B required spend on the project Ireland 2040 plan coming from the money tree too, aye?

IF we cancelled MetroLink and BusConnects, we would have the money for water infrastructure. Thems the choices.

Unless the magic money tree makes a reappearance.

blanch152

Matt Barrett wrote: »

You are misinterpreting my comment.
These things were an aside. A sign we couldn't trust politicians and their cronies to take care of the tax payers best interests. The water infrastructure was third place after 'looking after our own' and a sweet metering deal.

I'm surprised at this stage you still post such comments. The 'small things' such as 70m on consultants and crony appointments all came to light while opposition to the quango was already in full flow, you know this surely? The framework of the quango was the issue, the many cronyisms and waste of taxpayer money on such 'small things' shouldn't be dismissed. I mean we had no 'magic money tree' for health, housing etc. right? Seems we'd wheelbarrows of dosh for anything IW's little heart desired.

The people brought IW down. Politicians can convince themselves otherwise and if it helps FG/Lab sleep at night, sure it was all Paul Murphy and PBP.... I don't think anyone, including Paul Murphy believes that.

Many cronyisms = one board appointment.

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

IF we cancelled MetroLink and BusConnects, we would have the money for water infrastructure. Thems the choices.

Unless the magic money tree makes a reappearance.

Thankfully the people saw that particular magic money tree hacked down. It's funny how certain things require a 'magic money tree' but we've tens of millions to flitter away on others.
The state needs get it's housekeeping priorities in order. Supposedly the 'economy' is going great guns, now time to look at housing, health, education, water, the basic kind of things we bother with an 'economy' for? I don't think holding out to try bring in privatisation is working, if that's the plan.

blanch152

Larbre34 wrote: »

Don't forget folks, the charges as levied weren't even going to cover the admin costs of the structure set up to levy them. This means two things, the charges were only going to climb and hitching scope for capital investment to their success was just a red herring.

At the same time, folks in the Cities had been paying pretty eye watering levels of property tax, with zero regard for ability to pay, only to see a whack of of it redistributed to rural areas. So politically, the timing and manner of introducing water charges was naive, miscalculated and doomed. So miscalculated in fact, they have destroyed the chance of bringing in any sort of charging regime for generations.

A couple of things need to happen. 1, Irish Water needs to be abolished and network investment handed over to TII to be handled like the civil engineering challenge it is and let them get on with it using their proven expertise. 2, the Dept of Environment and the Councils need to make water conservation a local civic matter, because it is the right thing to do and do the PR like plastic bags and the smoking ban, put an education programme into schools. Awareness becomes second nature and over time we become better as a Country and managing the resource, particularly if our weather is going to become more extreme.

The charges as originally proposed would well have covered any admin costs. Yes, there were one-off initial costs, but by now, there would have been a significant growing surplus to be invested in fixing leaks and infrastructure, together with the facility to borrow off-books.

TII have proven expertise in water infrastructure? Really?

PR? Having a laugh? All that would happen is that those who don't care and don't listen would still waste water. Educating people not to smoke didn't work so we banned it legislatively. Asking people with PR to reuse plastic bags and educating them about the environment didn't work so we brought in a charge. You make a very good case for water charges with those examples.

James Brown

blanch152 wrote: »

Many cronyisms = one board appointment.

Don't be so purposefully naive. I'll not jump down this particular rabbit hole thank you very much.

PeadarCo

Larbre34 wrote:

TII are civil engineering project managers, it doesnt particularly matter whether its a motorway a tramline or a pipeline network, they know how to package up projects and deliver them. My point is, they are already in situ, now that charges have gone away, having Irish Water remain is costly duplication of resources.

So what part of Irish water would not be needed? TII does have civil engineering but they I imagine are already working on projects. So what you are proposing is removing them putting them on some thing they are not fimilar with(civil engineering is a broad area) , back filling their positions and paying redundancy to the equivalent people in Irish water. That is one way to waste money and get a worse service in the short run at least(until the project managers get up to speed with how the current system works)

I understand why people might oppose water charges even if I don't agree. What I don't understand is how some people call water a human right but oppose a national body to look after water in a small country like Ireland. Grand you might not like it in its current incarnation but replacing it would largely be a very expensive rebranding exercise which would bar a few high profile people keep the same organisation.

Hitman3000

blanch152 wrote:

IF we cancelled MetroLink and BusConnects, we would have the money for water infrastructure. Thems the choices.

Enforce the effective cooperation tax rate/increase the hospitality vat rate to 13.5% more choices.

The Bishop Basher

Hitman3000 wrote: »

Enforce the effective cooperation tax rate/increase the hospitality vat rate to 13.5% more choices.

Also €13 billion due from Apple which would pay for a few pipes..

James Brown

Use NAMA monies instead of allocating it to cheap loans for developers, some of who caused a need for NAMA.

McMurphy

blanch152 wrote: »

IF we cancelled MetroLink and BusConnects, we would have the money for water infrastructure. Thems the choices.

Unless the magic money tree makes a reappearance.

This is gas.

When Irish Water was in full swing, households being threatened with everything from the sheriff and trickles, the water infrastructure was the most important thing in the state, the sky falling in was imminent if we didn't do something etc etc etc.

Roll on to mid 2018 and despite FG unveiling a plan to spend 120 billion on infrastructure and other ventures, water seemingly doesn't get a look in, and you're suggesting people pick one project over another.

Threads gone full circle

The Emperors wearing no clothes.

dense

blanch152 wrote: »

The charges as originally proposed would well have covered any admin costs. Yes, there were one-off initial costs, but by now, there would have been a significant growing surplus to be invested in fixing leaks and infrastructure, together with the facility to borrow off-books.

That was the plan in theory, but it didnt happen, because to work it was dependant upon first getting customers signed up en masse and then ramping up the charges, because the original charges being levied were completely unsustainable in a business context.

Good loser

The campaigns against water charges goes back to the lamentable Joe Higgins. He started with the tautology that 'we were already paying for it'
(RTE could never handle that absurdity)


This was before any body had been constituted to run the utility.


Once set up, or thereabouts, the arguments against the concept moved on to the actualities involved in the set up of this IW (every new and old organization makes mistakes). Each and every one of these was bigged up by the opportunists/tax dodgers/the Left into' inflated points of principle' so that A was against charges because Tierney, a failed LG official got the top job (he's gone now so what are the new 'principles' [Jerry Grant impresses me as a CEO]
B was against charges because of Tierney's salary
C was against charges because of Tierney's pension
D ditto consultants
E ditto Siteserv
etc etc etc


The third phase of principled (so called) objections were based on scares
for the future - privatization and charges escalating.


Thus the past,the present and the future were encapsulated into a farrago of nonsense.

All the objections lumped together do not amount to a hill of beans.

I do not believe that for one moment any of the political actors (sans Brendan Ogle) believed in the 'cause' they argued for, not Paul Murphy, not Eoin O'Broin, not Barry Cowan.


Opportunists the lot of them.

Hitman3000

I see the lamatation of the mess FG created is still going on. Several forget that over 600k households never engaged with Irish Water. Over 100k people travelled from all the country to take part in one of the biggest marches held against IW.
Strange even after the last election and the almost annihilation of the Labour Party people are still seeking blame everyone other than the authors of the mess that is and was IW. I'll refresh the memories of those that have forgotten. FG and Labour created the mess. Their fault no one else's. Good night.

Larbre34

Laughing at the irony of Good Loser being a very bad loser. The vitriol even after all the water under the bridge, pun intended!

We mustnt forget to give Fianna Fáil their share of the blame for IW, they signed us up for the damn thing when they were busy hawking the rest of family silver and studiously not burning junior bondholders.

The Bishop Basher

Good loser wrote: »

Once set up, or thereabouts, the arguments against the concept moved on to the actualities involved in the set up of this IW (every new and old organization makes mistakes).

Making mistakes is fine. Making the same predictable "mistakes" over and over while wasting vast sums of tax payers money is not.

The thing is, none of us were surprised by these "mistakes" because they weren't mistakes at all. They were a prime example of how we do business in this rotten and corrupt little state of ours.

The government clearly managed to dupe you and others but they didn't fool enough of us this time round and they'll never get away with trying a stunt like that again.

Good loser wrote: »

Each and every one of these was bigged up by the opportunists/tax dodgers/the Left

This was one of the main reasons you lost. I said it here at the time and was scoffed at. You wrote us all off as tax dodgers / scroungers / dole cheats etc. It was a lazy response and you were wrong.

It was a fatal error by the pro water tax side but thank you as it took your eyes off the ball and ensured victory for us.

Good loser wrote: »

All the objections lumped together do not amount to a hill of beans.

I do not believe that for one moment any of the political actors (sans Brendan Ogle) believed in the 'cause' they argued for, not Paul Murphy, not Eoin O'Broin, not Barry Cowan.

Well that's just your opinion and given that the Oireachtas committee on water charges found otherwise and that the Dail voted to accept their findings, you really don't have a leg to stand on..

But as above, thank you for underestimating us and please keep doing so..

lawred2

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

This is gas.

When Irish Water was in full swing, households being threatened with everything from the sheriff and trickles, the water infrastructure was the most important thing in the state, the sky falling in was imminent if we didn't do something etc etc etc.

Roll on to mid 2018 and despite FG unveiling a plan to spend 120 billion on infrastructure and other ventures, water seemingly doesn't get a look in, and you're suggesting people pick one project over another.

Threads gone full circle

The Emperors wearing no clothes.

Friend of mine is an engineer for Irish water. There are countless infrastructure projects underway. Funding doesn't seem to be a problem.

frankythefish

I think the masses have made it clear in the past with all the protests against water charges that they are not concerned about the supply of water

dense

"Inviting" people to become customers to sign up to a new charge was never going to work.

A stupid concept in any jurisdiction, but deemed 100% necessary in the case in hand because of the supposedly clever way IW was created as a utility
company.

The air began to come out of the tyre when people realised that declining that invitation had no real consequences.

I think in retrospect the government knew this was not going to be a runner beyond those who were dyed in the wool FG supporters and had plan B well in place, effective wind down of the brand hype and continued exchequer funding.
That is why funding is apparently not an issue now, years later.

McMurphy

Good loser wrote: »

I do not believe that for one moment any of the political actors (sans Brendan Ogle) believed in the 'cause' they argued for, not Paul Murphy, not Eoin O'Broin, not Barry Cowan.


Opportunists the lot of them.

I would lump FG as a whole, along with Labour in to this personally. What happened to their own cause and principles surrounding 'potable water' and Irish Water?

• Weren't we told that pps nos were vital to Irish Water? Couldn't work at all without them being handed over? Then they weren't needed anymore, and it could still work.
  
• The set unit per litre had to be set at a certain level, and the allowances couldn't be adjusted or it wouldn't work. Then they were, and it could still work.
  
• Charges couldn't be capped, the project wouldn't work if they were capped. Then they were capped, and it could still work.
  
• Non payers would have to be shut off and reduced to a trickle, then they weren't.
  
• Daily fines of millions. Etc etc etc.

Conmen and charlatans the lot of them.

FG had manners put on them. Time to get over it GL.

Quin_Dub

Rennaws wrote: »

Also €13 billion due from Apple which would pay for a few pipes..

Not at all.

If and when Apple pay the €13B, virtually none of it is owed to the Irish Government.

I don't know exactly what % of global sales for Apple Ireland accounts for but I'd imagine it's a very tiny amount.

The money would be owed to the states where the Sales occured not where it's collected. In this case Ireland would simply be collecting Taxes for other people. We'd be lucky to get a few million at most out of it.

FreudianSlippers

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

This is getting bit bizarre, and you seem to be in a gang of one on this.

This is from the pdf you linked to.

Surprising goalpost shift! /sarcasm

FreudianSlippers

Hitman3000 wrote: »

A poster here was adamant taxes were going to increase and repeatedly asked what taxes we would like to see increased. If I recall correctly income tax fell in the last budget as did usc. Vat remained the same however I believe the hospitality vat rate should be hiked back up to 13.5%. The 9% has served it's reason d' etre.

We didn't need to raise tax because we're just not doing the work that IW was going to do. There is a bit of activity going on, but not much, and that activity is taking away from investment in infrastructure in other areas.